Ruth Boff and Pinner Rotary took the top prizes at Harrow's Heroes on 16 September. All 12 winners in full, plus how to join the groups that won.

A volunteer who has spent more than 21 years as honorary secretary of the Pinner Association was named Harrow’s Volunteer of the Year on Wednesday 16 September.

Ruth Boff won the Contribution to the Community category and then took the overall prize. Pinner Rotary won the Team award and was named Volunteers of the Year. The ceremony was held in the Great Barn at Headstone Manor and the results were published by Harrow Council the following morning.

Nominations opened on 29 May. The evening included performances from the violinist Maya Patel and the solo artist Lara Lu.

Boff said she was “genuinely surprised and honoured” to win both awards. “Supporting Pinner and its residents has always been a privilege,” she said in the council’s statement. “This recognition belongs to our wonderful community too.”

The winners

The council’s published roll of honour lists 11 categories and two overall prizes. The council itself describes the night as 12 awards. Ruth Boff and Pinner Rotary each appear twice, once for a category and again for an overall title, which is where the difference lies.

  • Outstanding Young Person: Amir Subratty, for years of litter picking
  • Supporting Vulnerable People: Jade Weir-Reid, for community work through Carib & Co
  • Contribution to the Community: Ruth Boff, the Pinner Association
  • Bringing People Together: Krishna Pujara, for over 22 years of voluntary leadership
  • Extraordinary Achievement: Jordy Xavier Black. Highly commended: Tim Dalton
  • Pride in Harrow: the Friends of West Harrow Park. Highly commended: Friends of Headstone Manor Park
  • Health and Wellbeing: Kevin Mahon
  • Team: Pinner Rotary. Highly commended: Sai School of Harrow Volunteer Team
  • Good Neighbour: Paras and Kom Sid
  • Lifetime Achievement: Steven Smith
  • Posthumous: Muriel Desmond
  • Volunteer of the Year: Ruth Boff
  • Volunteers of the Year: Pinner Rotary

Around 40 other people and groups reached the finals. The full list, with the reason each nomination was made, is on the council’s own awards page.

Three of the names on the list are litter pickers

Litter runs through the shortlist in three separate categories, which is unusual for an awards night.

Amir Subratty won Outstanding Young Person for what the council describes as “years of dedicated litter picking”. Tim Dalton was highly commended in Extraordinary Achievement for cycling from Land’s End to John o’Groats to raise money for Harrow Litter Pickers. Marian Humphryes was a Contribution to the Community finalist for organising clean-ups with the same group.

Harrow Litter Pickers is a registered charity, number 1212579 on the Charity Commission register, which records an income of £41,766 and accounts received on time. The group gives volunteers free litter-picking kits and takes enquiries by email.

What the posthumous award was for

Muriel Desmond was recognised for 35 years as a carer with Harrow Shared Lives, the council scheme that places adults who need support in a family home rather than residential care.

The council’s news article calls it “a special posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award”. Its own winners list files her under Posthumous, with Steven Smith as the Lifetime Achievement winner. Smith was recognised for more than 40 years with St John Ambulance.

Shared Lives is also a scheme the borough is actively recruiting for. Carers are paid between £384.30 and £607.00 a week per person supported. The council says it particularly needs Gujarati, Hindi and Farsi speakers, and homes with ground-floor facilities.

Pinner Rotary’s own figures

The council’s citation credits Pinner Rotary with “donating over £30,000 to charities”. The club’s own fundraising and donations page publishes a total for each Rotary year:

  • 2024 to 2025: £24,360
  • 2023 to 2024: £25,420
  • 2022 to 2023: £21,300

No total for 2025 to 2026 had been published on that page as of 20 September, so the £30,000 in the citation cannot be matched to a single year from the club’s own record. Charities listed as supported include Mind in Harrow, Harrow Carers, Harrow Samaritans, St Luke’s Hospice and Radio Harrow.

Pinner Rotary runs the Pinner Village Show, which was held in Pinner Memorial Park on 12 September.

What it means for you

Every winner on this list is a group or a scheme you can actually join, and several are recruiting right now.

  • Pinner Rotary is holding an open evening for prospective members on Thursday 24 September at 6.30pm, at Yako Restaurant on Pinner High Street. Places are booked through the club’s contact page.
  • Harrow Litter Pickers provides free kits to anyone who wants to clean up their own street. Details are on its guides page.
  • Harrow Shared Lives is recruiting paid carers. You need to be 18 or over and a Harrow resident. The council’s scheme page sets out the rates and the application route.
  • Park volunteer groups appear all over this year’s shortlist: the Friends of West Harrow Park, the Friends of Headstone Manor Park, the Bridge Street Gardeners in Pinner, the Chandos Park Community Group and the Roxeth Rec Knitting and Planting Group.

If your clear-out is bigger than a litter picker’s bag, the council’s bulky waste and tip booking rules are set out on our Harrow bin collection days page. Headstone Manor itself, and the rest of the borough’s free days out, are listed on things to do in Harrow.

Nominations for the 2027 awards have not opened. This year’s opened at the end of May.

Sources